Legend of Sucky
by Ducky the most evil Swimmer
Summary: A short story about Sucky, the unluckiest dinosaur to exist, as narrated by our beloved Gang.
1. Prologue

**This is a short story for the fanfiction prompt challenge over on the LBT forum Gang of Five. I had to create a legend and this is my take on it :)**

 **Note, that it is a bit of a crackfic too. I will explain the background of this after the story. For now, enjoy the Legend of Sucky :)**

* * *

On a warm evening in the Great Valley, a couple of dinosaur children had gathered at their favourite story-telling place. It was a little secluded from the rest of the valley, rocks surrounding a medium-sized area that was about wide enough to hold a family of longnecks but not much more than that. The ground was cracked at some places, heat causing the air to swirl above them as the hot interior of planet earth was exposed here. The red, fiery glow gave the stories they told each other a completely different touch and, moreover, it helped keeping them warm on colder days. Today, however, it was still very warm despite the fact that the Bright Circle had already left the Valley. Dawn was descending more and more over the children as one of them began to announce.

"Hi everybody, thanks for coming again!" Littlefoot exclaimed as he stood in front of everyone else, one of the bigger cracks separating them from his tall, longnecked form. In front of him, his friends Cera, Ducky, Petrie, Chomper and Ruby had gathered, Spike supposedly catching up with them soon as he was still having his dinner. Besides his usual bunch of friends, Cera's cousins, Dinah and Dana, were gathered as well, looking eagerly at the longneck.

"Let's hear another wonderful story tonight, shall we?" Littlefoot proclaimed happily as his gaze wandered through the group.

"Whose turn it is?" Petrie piped up from his perch on Cera's hornfrill.

"Not mine, it was my turn last time!" Cera immediately fired back.

"Ducky, it's Ducky's turn!" Chomper remembered as his excitement rose; Ducky would always tell interesting stories after all quite unlike the ones Cera was often sharing with them.

"Ducky, have you prepared a story then?" Littlefoot questioned, his gaze wandering over to the swimmer.

"Of course I did, yep yep yep," Ducky chuckled in response; she loved telling stories after all.

"What kind of story?" Dana piped up curiously.

"Yeah, is it a scary story, is it?" Dinah chimed in.

"You always cry during those," Cera deadpanned but the twins chose to ignore her.

"It doesn't matter what kind of story it is as long as it is a good story," Ruby elaborated with a slight chuckle.

"Indeed, Ruby," Littlefoot nodded in agreement. "Well, Ducky, the audience is all yours, let's swap places."

"Yep yep yep!" Ducky tweeted as she got up from her spot, hopping across the crack in the ground while Littlefoot took a seat next to Cera.

"Oh, before I begin, should we wait for Spiky, should we?"

"He probably knows the story as well, considering you probably heard it from your mother," Littlefoot reasoned. "...so it should be fine to start."

"It his business if he rather eat than hear story. Me wanna hear story right here right now," Petrie argued, crossing his wings in front of him indignantly.

"Okay then, everybody listen please," Ducky requested which put an end to the discussion Dinah and Dana were having among themselves about what kind of story it might be this time. "The story I will tell you is a bit of a sad one but I hope that it will teach you a lesson, yep yep yep. It is the story of Sucky the swimmer…the legendary swimmer child who sucked at everything she did…"

* * *

Many years ago:

"Go away, you suck!"

The swimmer child looked up at her perpetrator sadly. She was used to being pushed around yet it never ceased to hurt being turned down by the fellow children in her herd.

"I am Sucky because I suck suck suck…" With a sigh, she freed herself from the puddle of muddy water she had been dumped into and began to walk away from the bully as she was told, aiming for the nearby stream to wash the dirt off her skin which was a dull, grey-ish colour, quite as opposed to the green-ish, brown-ish or even yellow-ish hues most of the swimmers in her herd had. In a way, it reflected on most of her life so far...

* * *

"So let me get this straight… You are telling us a story about some weird swimmer?! Can I just go to sleep?"

"Cera, quit complaining. I didn't want to hear your oh so glorious threehorn tale either," Littlefoot retorted quickly. Even if the synopsis of Ducky's story seemed a little dubious and boring, he was sure to be proven wrong eventually. As he had learned from his grandfather, many stories which didn't start promising turned out to be the best ones.

"Fine whatever…" Cera sighed, resigning. Putting up a fight was not how she wanted to end the day either.

"Go on, Ducky, me still listen," Petrie encouraged the swimmer, who was momentarily taken aback by the early interruption. Apparently, that did well as the kind-hearted swimmer raised her voice again.

"Saddened by the assault, Sucky walked away, reflecting on how she came to be…"

* * *

It all began even before her hatchday. Sucky's egg had been a lonely one. Nobody knew who it belonged to; all they knew being that an egg had been laid into an abandoned nest. The more dutiful and caring members of her herd would occasionally tend to the egg but, with nobody _really_ taking care, the egg had been cold for a long time.

Sucky had hatched regardless of the neglect, however it was much later - many weeks, after the other eggs that she finally saw the light of the Bright Circle first hand. Without a mother or a father to raise her, Sucky had spent her early childhood alone, only the deputies of the herd or the less selfish occasionally bringing her food and teaching her the bare necessities that a baby swimmer needed to be taught.

Both physical and mental neglect lead to a number of issues that essentially defined the kind of swimmer Sucky was destined to become - nothing but a failure.

To begin with, Sucky hadn't been growing very well, always looking weakly and sick. Many illnesses would haunt her constantly, threatening her life several times. She also couldn't walk the way normal swimmers did which earned her a lot of mocking not only from the children but from her elders as well. Many attempts at annihilating that tick of hers, whether using appeal or force, had failed horribly and, eventually, everyone came to the conclusion that it'd be hopeless. However, since nobody had the heart to send the poor child away, she continued to be tolerated despite the fact that she'd never be able to run from a predator fast enough.

"Ack!" Before the hapless swimmer knew what was happening, she fell flat on her face, having stumbled upon a vine on the ground. It was just another perk of being her that she fell… a lot. No day passed without injuring herself in one way or another, mostly because she stumbled upon her own feet during her weird walk cycle.

"I am Sucky because I suck suck suck." Flinching as the pain truly began to hit, she struggled back to her feet, sighing. Back when she was younger she would often cry but, after one too many disappointments, she eventually learned that nobody would come to help either way.

Aside from her walking, her eye-sight was also badly affected. On top of her eyes not coordinating well, her field of vision was a lot smaller than that of a normal swimmer which many other children often made use of when sneaking up on her unbeknownst to Sucky.

The poor hadrosaur's mind also hadn't developed quite as well as to be expected from someone her age which resulted in her being labelled as a stupid no-brainer who couldn't even understand the simplest of complex things.

Despite all the hardship life was constantly throwing at her, however, Sucky remained stubborn, surviving one close call after the next one until she had reached the age of eight. It was just on a normal day – terrible as usual, when things decided to go from worse to worst for not only her cursed self but for her own herd as well…

* * *

"Poor Sucky, she not having it easy…" Petrie commented absent-mindedly which drew in Ducky's attention.

"Well, yeah. That is nothing compared to the bad luck streak we were once having. Do you all remember?"

"Not at all."

"What happened?" Dinah and Dana, despite being very much involved in those past incidents, had been too young to recall any of the events but somewhere deep down they knew it must have involved them in some way or another.

"You silly airheads, don't you remember falling off Saurus Rock?!" Cera complained with a half-hearted sigh.

"Oh, Grandpa Topsy tell us about it once, 'member Dinah?"

"Uh-huh!"

"Either way," Littlefoot made his slowly deepening voice known to everyone present. "What happened? I think you were about to get to an important part?"

"Yeah, you say it sad story so something bad bound to happen at some point…" Petrie added to Littlefoot's point.

"Well, worse than the load of dung Sucky is always going through… oh geez…" Cera mumbled to herself but nobody except for the twins paid her any attention.

"Indeed, something terrible terrible happened to Sucky and her herd," Ducky confirmed to settle the commotion in the listener's ranks. In a mysterious tone, the swimmer carried on the tale.

"What I am about to tell you about really happened as you guys (Ducky pointed at Littlefoot, Cera and Petrie) can tell first hand, yep yep yep…"

* * *

It seemed like a perfectly normal to Sucky. After somehow ending up as the main target of a swarm of blood sucking insects, the poor swimmer sighed as she mindlessly drifted in the calm waters of the pond her herd was residing at for a few days to recover strength. Occasionally scratching parts of herself which, every so often, caused her to accidently submerge, Sucky spend the afternoon doing nothing in particular just as she always did. Nobody would mind her – maybe except for the bullies who were sometimes still picking on her, so she was simply bored and lonely as always, her eyes following the occasional cloud drifting past her.

It would have been a normal day indeed but suddenly Sucky noticed that something was off. Scratching her head, pondering what it might be (which obviously didn't lead to any formidable results), the feeling suddenly turned into a nightmare of leaf and meateater alike…

"Earthshake!"

Before Sucky knew what was going on, the world was spinning and tumbling around her, the calm waters turning into a raging madness within the blink of an eye as the ground beneath her began to move hastily.

" _E-earthshake?!"_ Sucky had been witness to a few smaller rumbles of the earth but they had been like a funny game of trying not to trip. This event, however, was a completely different level of madness. Panicking, constantly being submerged by the huge waves forming despite the small size of the pond, Sucky paddled with all her might, reaching the shore only moments before her strength left her completely.

"I am ***pant*** Sucky ***pant*** because I ***pant*** suck suck ***pant*** suck…" she managed to squeeze out her catchphrase, seemingly ignoring the imminent danger for a moment. Around her, chaos had befallen the herd, dinosaurs of all ages running in all possible directions at once but there was no escape. Sucky tried to get further away from the water pushing wave after wave against her hide but gaining her footing was simply impossible. The ground was moving up and down as if someone below her feet was shaking earth itself.

Suddenly, the intensity of the earthshake increased by another few magnitudes, the whole ground around Sucky liquefying and moving in waves like water, throwing the hapless swimmer back and forth. Sucky screamed at the top of her lungs as her very life was now on the line. As she screamed, the earth split in half a mere stone's throw in front of her, quickly growing, further cracks appearing out of nowhere closer and closer to Sucky. In spite of the pain she was in and in spite of the still rocking ground, the swimmer somehow managed to get onto her feet, half crawling, half running and half falling away from the growing abyss. More and more land submerged behind her, her panicked screams growing louder and louder as she tried to scramble away. At this rate, she would be sucked into the collapsing land mass in no time!

Abruptly, without warning, the ground below her rocketed skywards, the hapless youngling clinging at the rock for her very life. Would this be her end?

* * *

"Sorry to interrupt Ducky, but…" It was Chomper who had decided to speak up just as the climax of the action was descending upon the listeners of Ducky's story,

"What is it?" Ducky wondered, smiling at the little biter.

"If this happened during the infamous earthshake that split the land, it means Sucky probably wasn't much older than you at the time!"

"Ducky, was she a member of your old herd?" Littlefoot interrogated, also curious to see if there was any connection between Sucky and his friend.

"Maybe she even know Sucky?" Petrie hypothesized, scratching his neck.

"I did not know her but Sucky was indeed a member of the herd. Mommy made sure that I never got anywhere around her though…" Ducky explained which earned her some excited squeals from the twins.

"Cool cool!" Dinah tweeted.

What happen to her then? She get any more lucky than us during earthshake?" Petrie asked, stepping forward.

"Well… let me tell you the rest of the tale, yep yep yep!"

* * *

Just when it seemed like the piece of rock would fall over into the abyss, the earthshake suddenly stopped. Sucky remained lying where she was, covered in countless bruises and bleeding cuts. Her whole body was exhausted to the limits and tiredness descended upon the child quicker than dawn upon the battered land that used to be a hospitable place. Before she knew it, Sucky had fallen asleep on the spot, not even tempted to move to a safer place, nightmares of falling rocks and splitting lands haunting her sleep.

When Sucky awoke at the first ray of the Bright Circle, it took her a moment to realize what had transpired the other day. The sudden shock of seeing the devastated area quickly wearing off, Sucky looked around herself from her vantage point as best as her eyes allowed her to. What she saw shocked the girl. Corpses littered the ground and everything was broken and crooked and, above all, she found herself dangerously close to the gaping hole in the landscape.

"Yikes!" she squeaked, quickly making her way down from the piece of land that got raised just before the earthshake ended. No living creature was to be seen, only corpses of swimmers and some other dinosaurs rotting away here and there. It was then that Sucky made a heartbreaking realization.

She was all alone.

Being all alone was something completely different than being an outcast among others. At least there were other dinosaurs to talk to, observe or just hang around them. At least they always lead her to food and water… at least they protected her. Now she was on her own, a kid with many disabilities trying to survive in the wilderness. Whether her herd abandoned her or whether she was the only survivor (what a change from her misfortune that would have been!) didn't matter at this point. With slow, staggering steps, the child set foot on the cracked ground, no idea where to go or what to do, only knowing that she couldn't stay where she was.

"I am Sucky because I suck suck suck…" Mumbling her catchphrase to herself, she began wandering away from the scene, away from the crack in the land and away from her old life.

Never to be seen again.

* * *

Some choked sobs could be heard from the corner the twins resided at as the swimmer concluded her tale.

"Poor poor Sucky!"

"So sad!"

"Oh, get a grip, will ya?" Cera sighed as she set sight upon the sobbing twins.

"Quite a tragic tale indeed," Littlefoot admitted, able to relate to the hapless swimmer's predicament as he had been there before in the past. A lone child with disabilities in the Beyond was likely a goner.

"Did anyone ever hear about her again?" Chomper wondered, Ruby looking at Ducky expectantly as well.

"No no no, I have not," Ducky admitted. "Many from that herd did not make it and my mommy and I got separated from the rest and each other as well..."

"Does this tale have any hidden lesson, a hidden lesson it has?" Ruby wondered since usually these tales had to be read metaphorically as well.

"I am not entirely sure," the swimmer replied honestly. "Sucky was simply cursed with bad luck but she never stopped trying... I guess?"

"Well, maybe she have lots of adventures like we did?" Petrie suggested .

"I'm sure she did," Littlefoot assured, smiling. Glancing over at the twins yawning soundly he added mirthfully. "Well, it's getting late so let's go back home, shall we?"

"Yeah," Cera grunted, shooting a glance over at the twins. "Just for the record, you're walking yourselves home, got that?"

The twins nodded somewhat drowsily which earned them a few chuckles from the assembled dinosaurs.

"Yep, yep, yep, I need to find Spiky anyway since he probably dozed-ed off while eating," Ducky pointed out, another round of chuckles going through the group.

"Geez, will he ever change?" Cera sighed, rolling her eyes.

"I could scare him to teach him a lesson," Chomper added with a toothy grin, however his excitement faded when Ruby reprimanded him.

"No, enough adventures for today because today is already over!"

"Well," Ducky spoke up in order to conclude the storytelling night. "We may not know what adventures Sucky may have had but I think it would be fun guessing, yes it would! But I think I need... to go now, yep yep... yep."

"Even Petrie tired," the flyer admitted, chuckling slightly when Ducky couldn't suppress yawning as she spoke.

"Let's discuss this tomorrow, let's all head for home now!" Littlefoot announced, to which none of his friends objected. After wishing each other a good night, they separated, going home. And legend says, some even dreamed about the adventures of Sucky the unlucky swimmer that night.

* * *

 **Originally, that last sentence was supposed to be a teaser, making people wonder whether there would be more to come. Since I've written this a while ago already, I can already confirm, that a follow-up story is coming soon :)**

 **Now you probably wonder... how the heck did the evil swimmer came up with that? Well, let me tell ya :P**

 **Some of you may not be aware, but my name on here isn't the name I usually go by online. Most people know me as "Ducky123" (which is my username on the Gang of Five forum as well) with Ducky the most evil swimmer (or variations of that) being a sort of nickname after using an avatar of Ducky looking angry and evil a tad too long :P**

 **Anyway, the idea for this came up, when somebody accidently made a typo, spelling my name wrong. And thus Sucky was born xD**

 **I hope you found this particular tale interesting. It was certainly fun to write and, as I said above, the follow-up will be coming soon (and the focus will be leaning even more towards crackfic territory, oh boy xD)**


	2. Chapter 1 - Chomper's story

**Chapter 1:** **Chomper's story: How to expose your behind to a sharptooth!**

One day Sucky was wandering through a forest, when a strange feeling fell upon her... as if something or someone was stalking her. Anxiously, the young swimmer slowly completed a circle, trying to spot if there was any danger lurking behind the thick vegetation, her bad eyesight not helping her in her efford. After completing two more circles without spotting anything peculiar, the swimmer eventually walked on through the thick trees, humming a random melody.

 ***snap***

Sucky jerked as a twig snapped dangerously close to her, a quick glimpse at her feet confirming that she had not stepped on anything, thus it couldn't have been her...

 _Oh no..._

Sucky turned towards the source of the sound which seemed to originate from a thick bush to her right, leaves rattling as she slowly turned around, petrified.

Suddenly, a face emerged right next to her. Sucky shrieked as the realization hit her with hurricane force.

A purple sharptooth, juvenile, with a toothy grin, manifestation of the successful sneak-up.

With a mighty leap, the girl jumped backwards, falling flat on her back as she barely avoided being severed by the claws of the young sharptooth, scrambling further away but the sharptooth was above her again in no time.

"Heeeeelp!" Sucky screamed at the top of her lungs, barely avoiding the deadly bite coming her way by rolling over and somehow getting back on her feet despite trembling heavily. While the purple carnivore was busy pulling his snout out of the ground just where she had been moments ago, the girl ran for it, following no particular direction as she took the path with least resistance as in the path with the least underbrush to slow her down.

For a while it seemed as though Sucky was able to outrun the juvenile sharptooth, however it was when Sucky decided to take a glimpse behind her that she realized this was clearly not the case. The purple beast greeted her with a toothy smile as it jogged along behind her with little to no exertion whereas she was slowly reaching the limit of what she could do. Panicking, the swimmer picked up her pace, screaming like a maniac, only using up the little energy she had left even quicker. Frantically, the girl put her terribly poor eyes to labor in the puny hope that a hideout would present itself to her. Considering her usual luck however…

That was when she saw it. A small tree trunk, the innards rotten away to leave nothing but its rugged outer shell, directly in front of her. Pumped up, the swimmer managed to find some extra energy, sprinting towards the possible life-saver. True, it wouldn't magically make her lose the predator, however he wouldn't be able to reach her in there no matter how long he'd wait guarding the exits. It'd be much smarter to search for new pray rather than camp until she'd come out starving after all.

"I will not die today!" Sucky yelled as she sprinted the last few meters towards the tree trunk, sailing through the air with a mighty leap and maneuvering herself right into the small opening…

 ***crack***

Sucky felt humongous pain as the wood splittered, cutting deep into her sides, and it didn't take long for her to make the obvious realization…

She was stuck, the log too narrow for her to fit. With her butt, legs and tail sticking out, unable to move out due to the several injuries she just obtained and the predator's steps growing louder behind her, there was little left to say for the poor child.

"I am going to die today… I am Sucky and I suck suck suck... " A loud sniff erupted from the swimmer as tears flooded her face, a face that would soon be lunch.

The sharptooth saw the fleshy tail wagging back and forth, smelling the scent of fresh blood and immediately entering a mad sprint, saliva flooding its mouth in anticipation of the meal that just got itself stuck much to its pleasure. With a mighty roar of joy and victory, it opened its jaws, going for the kill…

* * *

"Well, that's when I woke up," Chomper mentioned prosaically, a small amount of disappointment ringing in his voice.

"Oh what a bother!" Cera replied while moving in a dramatical manner, the sarcasm in her voice obvious to everyone present.

"Yep, we wanted to hear details after all…" Petrie lied, jumping on Cera's train.

"Poor Sucky though… she was eated-ed, she was she was…" Ducky commented in a slightly tragic voice.

"Oh no, oh no!" the twins sang in chorus with shocked expressions.

"Well, that was surprisingly not gore-y," Littlefoot deadpanned. "Okay, I guess now I can have my turn?"

"Sure!" Chomper tweeted. "Go ahead!"

"Alright!"

As Littlefoot prepared to speak in from of everyone, Chomper returned to his place next to Ruby who decided to whisper something into his ear.

"Are you sure this was the full story, Chomper?"

"Nah, just wanted to disappoint Cera, I actually got to eat her," Chomper answered truthfully with a toothy grin.

"Well, suppose this was for the best, for the best it was," Ruby replied with a devious smirk as Littlefoot began his narration…

* * *

 **So... yeah. Having Sucky die didn't really fit into the bigger scheme haha. But that idea was too funny to drop so I entered it as the first chapter, acting as a sort of teaser as for what is to come from now on.**

 ** _Sucky having random adventures and lots of bad luck... ^^_**

 **Now for the reviews...**

* * *

Guest chapter 1 . Jun 18

"Since this was just posted an hour ago, hopefully you will have time to provide a response if you feel inclined. I hesitate to ask this, it has probably gotten annoying after all this time, but do you ever plan to continue Shorty's Dark Past?

Anyway, now that I have that question out of the way, I'll continue reading this story and let you know my thoughts on it as soon as I can."

 **I think you already got the answer but yes I am in fact working on a complete revamp :)**

* * *

Guest chapter 1 . Jun 18

"My apologies for the question about SDP earlier, at the time I didn't notice the update but I left a review. As for this story, I think it could be very promising. Taking the original fanfic into account, I think there's a lot you could do narratively with the characters coming together to tell stories in what is essentially a dinosaur Midnight Society. Although the concept began as a crack-fic, I can see this potentially being utilized for many different genres."

 **No worries, and yes I guess with a different setting Sucky could end up quite differently than she has here. You will see in the chapters to come. Glad you like it, it's quite different from my usual writing and it was somewhat of a challenge to ignore some common writing rules in order to make this a crack-fic :D**

* * *

"The Rhombus chapter 1 . Jun 20

Oh no... I can only imagine what Chomper would have dreamed about considering his culinary preferences. :p The banter was quite well done in this prologue and I can easily see the gang engaging in dialogue like this. I look forward in reading where things go from here."

 **Thanks for the review, rhombus :) I think I got to explore Chomper's culinary preferences quite well in this chapter, don't you think? ;)**


End file.
